


Not A Cat Person

by monarchyofone



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Asshole Gavin Reed, Cat Lover Gavin Reed, First Meetings, Gavin Reed Being Less of an Asshole, Gavin Reed is A Cat Person, Gen, Tiny Grey Kitten, but he's going to, gavin doesn't understand cats, nines is a cat person too, no romance but it's nines and gavin so you know what happens, or maybe gavin is the cat, the cat is gavin's love for androids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-15 03:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18065840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monarchyofone/pseuds/monarchyofone
Summary: In which Gavin is convinced he is a dog person, and not a single thing will change his mind.





	Not A Cat Person

**Author's Note:**

> That moment when Neil defied all fanfiction writers by saying Gavin is definitely, certainly, unquestionably a dog person, thereby breaking every single viewer of Bryan’s stream, but simultaneously created, well, whatever this is.

 

**July 4, 2038**

“No, I like—” Gavin cleared his throat with a deliberate, determined noise, trying to push away the frog in his throat. “I like dogs. I’m a dog person. Cats are too—” He lifted his beer to his lips, searching for the right word. “Sharp.”

“Sharp?” Ben snorted into his bottle. “ _That’s_ the reason you don’t like cats. Shit, I’d rather you just said you didn’t have a reason at all than to say you don’t like cats because they’re _sharp_.”

Gavin very slowly lifted his middle finger into the air, holding it in place while he swallowed the butt end of his beer in one slightly-warm, almost disgusting gulp. “Fuck off. Cats are…I don’t understand them. They’re so…solitary. They practically hate everyone and everything. And you _never_ know what a cat’s thinking or feeling. Dogs at least can communicate when they’re happy, or hungry, or need to go out, or whatever, right? Cats…fuck, they just make no sense.”

“Is this a euphemism for pussy or something?” Chris asked, plopping their refills down in the middle of the picnic table, next to the plate of cold hot dogs and the empty bowl of chips. “Why are we talking about cats?”

“It’s not a euphemism,” Gavin said flatly. “I’ll fuck anybody who’ll fuck me, I don’t give a fuck. I’m literally talking about cats and dogs.”

“It was just a simple question,” Tina said. “I asked Gavin if he’s a cat person. He got all…weird about it.”

“I just,” Gavin responded slowly, “don’t understand cats. I’m a dog person. Who said it got weird? It didn’t have to get so weird.” He reached for another beer. “Fuck.”

 

**January 4, 2039**

“Look alive, Reed, new one comin’ in for ya. Happy new year.”

Gavin groaned, spinning around in his chair as a case file plopped down on his desk. He flipped open the overflowing file, glanced down the first page, ran his thumb along the rest of the fifty or so pages, and swore.

“Happy fucking new year indeed.”

He stood, beelining it for the break room, leaving the file behind. No fucking way he could even think about touching that guaranteed mess before noon. _Perhaps_ a coffee would make it slightly more palatable. Or, perhaps he could just waste away the morning pretending to get work done while he slammed coffees until it was socially acceptable enough to go to a bar.

Half a step into the break room, and he nearly slammed his head against the fucking wall. Anything to make the day just…stop. Anything to get away from—

“Good morning, Detective Reed.”

Gavin jerked his chin back toward the open floor. “You running errands for your owner, kid?”

Connor tilted his head to the side, and Gavin watched the blue LED on the side of the android’s head turn to yellow, spinning around in circles.

“Fuck, you’re not supposed to think that hard about a joke,” Gavin interrupted. “Just finish making Hank’s goddamn coffee and free up the machine for, you know, people who can actually _drink_ the stuff.”

Connor leaned back against the counter, watching him, and Gavin nearly put his fist through the nearest glass door. Androids don’t need to _lean_ on anything, fucking machines. Was this some dumb attempt to appear more human? Or had this fucking piece of plastic actually started to think he _was_ one of them?

“Did you know, Detective Reed, that since androids were given legal rights last month, the country’s top engineers have been working non-stop on upgrades to both our hardware and software?”

“Did _you_ know,” Gavin spat back, stepping forward, “that I couldn’t give less of a shit?”

Connor reached behind him for the steaming cup of coffee, lifted it in the air toward Gavin in some sort of weird salute (was the android actually attempting a sarcastic cheers or something?), and then put the cup to his lips and tipped it back. The scent of the fresh brewed coffee wafted toward Gavin’s nose, and he squinted, trying to process the events of the last few seconds. Did he just—

“Hank makes his own goddamn coffee,” Connor said, tossing his cup into the trash behind Gavin with his most infuriatingly good aim. “And so do I.”

Gavin watched Connor leave the break room, frozen in place. When his brain finally clicked back into working condition, he stormed out of the room, forgoing his coffee altogether, swept up the gigantic file from his desk, and exited the department building.

He might need to work with the android. He might need to stomach his stupid face, or his stupid voice, or his stupid flirting with Hank that Hank clearly either loved beyond belief or was astonishingly blind to. He might even be legally bound by new android protection laws that obligated him to restrain his baser instincts and rein in his temper.

But he sure as hell didn’t need to be in the same building as him.

—

The first thing Gavin noticed as he approached the first apartment listed in his file was the smell.

The second was the giant tin can standing in his way.

“You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me.” The second road block of the day, just his luck.

“Excuse me?” The blue light on the side of the android’s head blinked at him, turning to face Gavin. “Detective Reed, yes?”

Gavin growled in the back of his throat. “No fucking way. What the hell did they do to you?” Not quite the perfect mirror, but sure as hell recognizable.

The android tilted his head, exactly the same way Connor had just the hour previously. “I don’t understand.”

“No, of course you fucking don’t,” Gavin muttered. He changed the subject. “What are you doing here?”

“The department sent me.”

Gavin heaved a heavy sigh. Getting any slightly useful bit of information from this metal box was proving to be completely impossible. “ _Why_?” he ground out through gritted teeth.

“You needed a partner.”

 _Jesus Fucking—_ “Head back to the department,” Gavin ordered. “Give Fowler a message for me.”

“I can’t do that,” the android responded. “I have a job to do first.” He turned back to face the door.

“Aren’t you supposed to be, like, deviant and shit? Don’t you have free will? Wasn’t that the fucking point?”

“You are correct,” the android said to the door.

Gavin waited, running his tongue along his teeth in an attempt to hold his anger in. The android didn’t continue.

“I don’t need a partner,” Gavin spat instead. The silence lingered, thick and tense. What was he doing, anyway, trying to have a conversation with this glorified toaster? He shifted on his feet and waited for something to happen so he could just get the fuck in and out of this apartment as quickly as possible. He had an appointment with the nearest bar that involved completely drowning himself in booze to celebrate the beginning of this overblown fucking case.

The android pressed his hand to the door, his skin peeling back. Gavin almost gagged. “Fuck, do you have to do that in front of me? Jesus.”

“I have no concern for your opinion, Detective. The door is unlocked. It was last opened four hours ago. Whatever we find in here, it’s either not as old as the tip, or it’s been left there deliberately.”

“What, you can tell all that just by feeling up the door?”

The android turned back to face Gavin. “Do you have a security system in your apartment?”

Gavin’s eyes bugged out. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“If an apartment has a security system, then it’s connected to the cyberspace.” Gavin stared blankly. The android continued, “So yes, by interfacing with certain parts of the door, I can tell when it was last opened.”

Gavin couldn’t tell if that was his brain acting up, or if the android really had taken on just the slightest hint of exasperation. His eyes drifted down to the model number on the android’s uniform. “Should’ve known. R-K nine-fucking-hundred. What, they realized that the 800 wasn’t good enough? Or did they decide that the world just _needed_ more fucking androids to come in and replace every officer in the department?”

900 tilted his head in that _I don’t understand_ way again, and Gavin bit down hard on his tongue. “Did I replace your parter, Detective? My records indicate that you haven’t worked with a partner in some time.”

“Yeah,” Gavin snarled, “and maybe there’s a _reason_ for that.”

“Maybe there is.”

Gavin stepped back, completely withdrawing. “Open the damn door.” Fuck this fucking fuck. He needed a drink. Or seven.

“As you wish.” Nines put his hand on the doorknob, opening slowly. Once the door was wide enough to poke his head through, a tiny blob squeezed its way out of the apartment, cutting through his legs and bolting down the hallway.

“Fuck,” Gavin said, his head turning to follow the tiny animal. No fucking way was he chasing after a…

“Go get that cat!” Nines yelled over his shoulder. He pushed into the apartment quickly and shut the door. A flurry of movement on the other side of the thin piece of wood indicated…more cats inside. Many more.

“Fuck,” Gavin swore again. He was a _detective_ , not an animal catcher. Certainly not for cats. But, since the alternative was the apartment with more cats inside, Gavin moved down the hallway in the direction of the kitten, planning to put in as minimal effort as possible. If the cat left the building, well, he couldn’t be responsible. “Goddamn cats.”

At the end of the hallway, Gavin caught sight of a thin grey tail sliding underneath a vending machine in the alcove next to the exit. He rubbed his forehead, stepped onto the cheap, peeling linoleum, swallowed thickly, and dropped to his knees. “Uh, come here, cat.” He peered underneath the machine to find a pair of glowing yellow eyes by the far corner. He slid a few fingers underneath, but could barely fit his hand in. No chance of just reaching in and grabbing the damn thing.

“I hate cats.” He sat back up on his heels, contemplating. This was the last thing he wanted to be spending his time on—there was a whole file of papers he still had to read, and he had zero idea what was even in this apartment, and why it had been on the top of that first paper he’d skimmed.

But the alternative would be to go back into that apartment, which he understood now reeked of, well, cat. And was filled with entirely too many cats, plus an android. There was nothing remotely interesting about this situation. _Fuck_.

He put his head back down toward the ground—hovering over the disgusting floor by mere millimeters—and locked eyes with the kitten again. He awkwardly made a sort of clicking sound with his tongue. “Come here, kitty. It’s okay.” He tried to slide his fingers in again, hoping to entice the animal to come toward him. How the hell do you get a cat to come to you? Food, maybe? He sat back up again—his legs were totally going to kill him in the morning—and glanced cursorily at the machines, hoping to find something that a cat might want to eat. What do cats eat, anyway?

See, this was why he hated cats. They’re the greatest mystery on the planet; he knew literally nothing about them. They can’t be taught commands, like dogs can. Dogs are more than happy to run to a human when they see one. Most dogs will at least _taste_ whatever the hell kind of food you’ve got. Cats literally couldn’t be fucked to obey a single command (Gavin wasn’t so sure they were smart enough to understand commands to begin with). They have zero interest in being around humans. Hell, this one was _hiding underneath a vending machine_ to get away from—

Something brushed his knee. Gavin looked down to see the tiny grey kitten leaning against his leg, pressing its chin against his body as it walked around him, purring. Purring? What the hell would this cat be purring about? Why do cats purr? (Another cat mystery Gavin added to his now ongoing list).

The kitten rubbed against his hand, resting on his knee, and Gavin lifted it to press lightly against the top of the tiny head, right between the ears. The kitten pushed against him, so he pressed a little harder. The purring grew louder, and now, Gavin could feel it against his skin as well. He moved his hand back and forth against the kitten’s surprisingly soft fur, his thumb finding a place right between the kitten’s eyes, occasionally bumping against its cold nose.

“What made you decide to come out, little guy?” Gavin asked, following the movement of the cat’s head and deciding to scratch it underneath its chin. This wasn’t so different from dogs, after all. Of course, he couldn’t take the cat’s head in both his hands and shake it around like he remembered doing with his neighbor’s dog growing up, but also that dog was nearly a hundred pounds, and this kitten couldn’t be more than three.

The kitten pressed up against his leg again, rubbing its head on the seam of Gavin’s jeans, and then abruptly put two paws up on his leg. Gavin, startled, jerked back, and the kitten ran off, back underneath the machine again.

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” Gavin said, dropping his head down to look at the glowing eyes again. “You scared me, little guy, but I didn’t mean to scare you.” He didn’t know where this instinct to talk to the cat came from, but he kept talking anyway. “Come back out, it’s okay. Come here.” He made some more sounds with his mouth, trying to keep the kitten’s attention. They started to turn into something vaguely similar to kissing noises, but they definitely _weren’t_.

“You know, cats tend to respond better to sibilant sounds,” said a voice from above his head.

Gavin jerked up to find Nines standing in the doorway. “The hell are you doing here?”

“You’ve been gone for a long time,” the android said. “I just wanted to make sure the cat hadn’t slit your throat and left you to die out here.”

“More like, you wanted to make sure I hadn’t killed the thing,” Gavin mumbled, turning his attention back to the vending machine. “Damn thing’s not coming back out.”

Nines crouched on the floor next to Gavin and started making strange hissing sounds. “Pss pss pss.”

“Couldn’t you just lift the machine up, and I’ll grab it? What’s the point of having all that android strength around otherwise?”

“The cat could get injured if I lift the machine and it gets scared and darts away,” Nines said. “I don’t want to take the chance of dropping the machine on it.”

Gavin sighed. “So much work for this damn cat.” He peered back down under the machine, trying to see if the cat had moved even the slightest bit since he’d last looked. “Come here, kitty.”

“Here.” Nines reached into his pocket and held his hand out to Gavin. “Try these.” He dropped a few cat treats into Gavin’s palm.

“Now you bring the food,” Gavin grumbled, putting his hand down next to the machine. They waited in silence for a minute or so, Gavin turning the treats around in his hand a couple of times. “You know, dogs would never have to be coaxed out to come eat, especially treats. Dogs will beg for hours for a single treat, and here’s this damn cat, staring at four perfectly fine pieces of, I dunno, chicken or something, and won’t touch a single thing.”

“Mraow?” A little nose peeked out from under the machine, followed by a soft grey head. The kitten sniffed all over Gavin’s hand, found that it remembers the scent from marking him a bit earlier, and leaned down to bite into one of the treats.

“True, but isn’t it so much more rewarding when you finally get a cat to trust you?”

Gavin didn’t reply. Not because he agreed with Nines, but just because he didn’t want to say anything to scare the cat back under the machine again. He’d worked so damn hard to get the thing out.

Finished with the treats, the kitten circled around him again, rubbing its head against his clothes and pushing against his hand. Gavin scratched the kitten beneath the chin, and this time, he didn’t flinch (that much) when the kitten put its paws on his leg. Finding the material of the jeans not actually that secure to jump onto, the kitten pushed away from Gavin and instead started to investigate Nines.

Gavin slowly readjusted his legs, starting to feel the muscle soreness now from being crouched on the floor for entirely too long (all for a damn _cat_ , of all things). He looked over at Nines, watching the android interact with the tiny kitten. Like it did for him, the kitten circled the android, pressing its head against his legs, purring loudly and rubbing against his hands. Unlike Gavin, though, the android immediately pet the kitten everywhere he possibly could: along the top of the head, down both of its sides, up the thin, flicking tail, and just briefly through the fluff under its belly. The kitten paced quickly between each of Nines’ hands in a movement Gavin can only characterize as…happy?

(Was he starting to understand cat behavior now?)

Nines let the kitten climb up onto his legs, helping the kitten get balanced and curl up with his hands. The kitten relaxed, purring, and looked over at Gavin with its big yellow eyes. (They no longer seemed to be glowing, now that the kitten wasn’t completely blanketed in the darkness of the vending machine). Slowly, Gavin reached over to pet the kitten on the head, and the kitten closed its eyes.

“What was in the apartment?”

Nines looked up from the kitten on his lap, and locked eyes with Gavin. “Eleven cats,” he said. “Five or six about the size of this one, so probably a recent litter. Not much else. All the furniture was torn to shreds, and there were cat bowls and litter boxes everywhere. The person who entered the apartment previously must be feeding them, but there hasn’t been anyone living there for quite some time, given the state of the linens on the bed. Whoever added this to the case file must’ve been mistaken.”

Gavin closed his eyes, pushing down the swell of anger in his chest. “That motherfucker,” he spat.

“Detective?”

Gavin softly pressed a hand against the kitten’s body, feeling its purr slowly fade away as it fell asleep on the android’s lap. “It’s nothing.” He was going to kill Ben. Or Chris, or Tina, or Jeffrey, or whoever the fuck it was that put this apartment on his list. _And_ sent an android to accompany him. “What’s left to be done here, anything?”

Nines glanced down at the sleeping cat. “Just take this little guy back, I guess.”

Gavin looked at the cat, and then up at the android he’d been sitting next to now for quite some time. He sighed, resigning himself to the shifting of the topsy-turvy world he’d suddenly found himself in—or, perhaps, the world that had been changing around him for quite some time, something he’d always been resistant to.

He made his decision.

—

The next morning, Gavin put a cup of coffee on Connor’s desk.

“Detective?” The android looked up at him, with that dumb slightly tilted head that Gavin had come to recognize all so well.

“It’s the best damn coffee in the city,” Gavin said. “If you’re going to be drinking coffee, at least learn what the good shit tastes like.” He moved away before Connor could ask any follow-up questions about why Gavin was suddenly willingly talking to the android.

Ten minutes later, Gavin pulled his car into a parking space and entered a building.

“You didn’t miss anything,” Nines said, his hand petting the tiny grey kitten, who was curled up on his lap once again. “Vet should be back in a few minutes with more information, but so far, there’s no evidence of any sort of chip or tattoo, and it doesn’t seem to have ever visited a clinic before.” He shrugged, the most human move he’s made since Gavin met him less than twenty-four hours before. “What are you going to name it?”

Gavin had been thinking about a name all night, watching the kitten wander around on his bed and fall asleep on his legs. Thinking about the android now sitting next to him, who had offered to join him this morning, who’d spent the night sitting on Gavin’s couch (even though he’d been invited into the bedroom, something Gavin couldn’t explain even if he’d tried).

“Sharp,” he said. “Its name is Sharp.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading <3 I wrote this in an afternoon (after months of not writing anything at all) so I have no idea if it's good or not, but when the world exploded after Neil said Gavin was a dog person, I knew something had to be done to set the world right.


End file.
